BETHANY BEYOND THE JORDAN, JORDAN—Sviatlana Tsiaseka slips into the greenish water of the River Jordan at about the same spot where many believe Jesus Christ was baptized 2,000 years ago by his disciple John.

What Tsiaseka lacks in decorum or solemnity — a nearby nun told her firmly there was no way she would be going into the holy river wearing nothing but a thin linen scarf and that she shouldn’t even think about swimming across to the Israeli side — she makes up for with enthusiasm.

She glides to the middle of the lukewarm Jordan, three metres wide at this point.

“My grandmother will be so happy,” she says, dipping her head under the water as a busload of tourists watch from shore.

This pilgrimage site north of the Dead Sea was off limits to tourists for decades because the hills, fields and valleys flanking the river were covered in landmines. Christ’s baptism site was a literal no-man’s land.

It was much the same story along Jordan’s border with Syria and even in the Jordan valley, one of the few regions of this arid country where groundwater makes it possible to farm.

But in 2002, following a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan and in a move that followed the visit of Pope John Paul II, landmines were completely removed from the baptism site and it was opened to tourists.

Today, 30,000 tourists per month travel to this spot, about 45 minutes west of Amman.

It shows what is possible with a comprehensive commitment to clear the deadly vestiges of war.

In March, Jordan announced the clearance of its last minefield along its northern border with Syria. In all, 270,000 landmines were removed from 126 minefields. One minefield alone that ran adjacent to the Syrian border stretched for 104 kilometres.

The accomplishment, spearheaded by Prince Mired Raad Zeid Al-Hussein, a cousin to Jordan’s King Abdullah, makes this nation of 6.5 million people one of the few countries to completely remove its landmine fields.

And Canada has played a prominent role in the effort, Jordanian government officials say, giving $2.7 million in landmine action assistance over the past eight years.

“You can’t imagine how hard it was to do this,” says Basam Kasabeh, an official with Jordan’s National Commission on Demining and Rehabilitation. “For years we had smugglers coming across the border and a military commander’s answer would be to lay more mines.

“We would have flood waters come each year and pick up the mines and sweep them away to new locations. You didn’t know whether mines had been moved, blown up or even cleared already.

“Then you had the problem of fences disappearing around minefields. We had farmers stealing it to put around their cattle. We had to spend $250,000 a year on fence alone.”

The success is tremendous news for Jordan’s farmers.

The desert covers 92 per cent of the country while some of Jordan’s scarce arable land had been blanketed in landmines.

In the early 1950s, agriculture accounted for nearly 40 per cent of Jordan’s gross national product. In 1967, as the area covered by landmines grew, it slipped to 17 per cent. Today, it is about 4 per cent.

Now that the mines have been cleared, the land is being returned to farming. In one case, land near the Israeli border has been converted into a massive palm plantation producing palm oil. Along the Syrian border, farmers are planning new crops of wheat, tomatoes, cucumber and olives.

Ahmed Miqbel, 70, grows tomatoes and peppers on about 14 hectares of land in Jabir, a town of 4,000 adjacent to the Syrian border. Last month, authorities told him he was free to use two hectares that had been contaminated for years by landmines.

“These mines have stopped us from using our fields,” he said on a recent afternoon. “I know two neighbours who have lost legs because of mines.”

Since the 1950s, when tensions began to peak between Jordan and Israel, landmines have killed at least 120 people here and injured 810 others.

But perhaps the best news for locals is the potential impact on tourism.

Unlike many of its regional neighbours, Jordan does not have vast reserves of oil and gas. Tourism is the economy’s fastest-growing sector, thanks to attractions such as Petra and Wadi Rum, the windswept desert made famous by Lawrence of Arabia. Tourism accounts for at least 14 per cent, or $2 billion, of Jordan’s economy. By contrast, tourism in Canada is worth about 3 per cent of GDP.

Now that Jordan has completed its demining, Mired, 47, said he’s shifting his attention to other nations, trying to coax the likes of Mongolia, Laos, Tonga and Bahrain to sign the Ottawa Treaty — the 1997 anti-landmine initiative.

“I’d really like to get the U.S. on board,” he said. “I’ve met with a few of President Obama’s advisers so we’ll see. Having the U.S. would bring a new energy.”